Trump could win presidency: Yes or No?

[aleCcowaN]

New poll on battleground states:

Pennsylvania: Clinton 47%, Trump 38%

 

[CapelDodger]

The city of Berlin elected their senate today and it was very interesting to watch the prognosis turning into the actual result. What was remarkable is that the "Alternative for Germany" party, fairly new Anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic, Islamophobe, a late comer to similar parties in Europe and like them demonized in the corporate press, went from low 11% in the prognosis to what looks now with 97% of the votes counted like easily over 14%.

From 11% to 14%. Panic over. Let's hope we see more results like that across Europe.

 

[Fudbucker]

From 11% to 14%. Panic over. Let's hope we see more results like that across Europe.

Yeah, that doesn't seem like a whole lot, does it. Are we missing something? Is gaining 3% in Germany a big deal or something?

 

[aleCcowaN]

She was offering it just as evidence of masked vote intention. The pollsters got 11% yet the result is 14%, probably meaning that a bunch of people intended to vote the extreme right but were somewhat afraid of telling.

She hypothesizes something like that could be behind Trump's figures. I agree there was a lot of that during the primaries: a lot of indecisive voters, Cruz winning, Rubio well positioned and ... gee whiz! landslide for Trump. Now it may be some of it. In fact I think vote intention regarding Johnson hides a lot of Trump and Clinton voters that are saving the bitter final choice for November 7th.

 

[Fudbucker]

She was offering it just as evidence of masked vote intention. The pollsters got 11% yet the result is 14%, probably meaning that a bunch of people intended to vote the extreme right but were somewhat afraid of telling.

She hypothesizes something like that could be behind Trump's figures. I agree there was a lot of that during the primaries: a lot of indecisive voters, Cruz winning, Rubio well positioned and ... gee whiz! landslide for Trump. Now it may be some of it. In fact I think vote intention regarding Johnson hides a lot of Trump and Clinton voters that are saving the bitter final choice for November 7th.

Oh, the name for that here is the Bradley Effect, although that's invoked when people lie to pollsters because of racial reasons. I think there's an element of the populace that doesn't want to admit to anyone they would vote for Trump.

On the other hand, I think there's an element that says they will vote for Trump (and really won't), just to stir things up. I don't know if these two groups cancel each other out.

 

[Childlike Empress]

From 11% to 14%. Panic over. Let's hope we see more results like that across Europe.

Yeah, that doesn't seem like a whole lot, does it. Are we missing something? Is gaining 3% in Germany a big deal or something?

It is a whole lot by German standards. Usually you get a prognosis (I think comparable to "exit polls", from interviews with people after they voted) the minute the voting ends (Sunday 6 pm) and that is fairly accurate, to the degree that a change before the comma is unusual (if it isn't from something like (x),9 to (x+1),0). A difference of a whole 3 percentage points at that level is nothing but a failure, and it has happened to the AfD results in one of the two recent elections in federal states before (while the other, more recent one was pretty accurately prognosed).

edit: To clarify, this was the first time the AfD competed in Berlin. They were founded in 2013 while the last Berlin senate election was 2011. So they gained everything they have now - the difference I talk about is between "exit polls" and actual result today.

 

[Fudbucker]

It is a whole lot by German standards. Usually you get a prognosis (I think comparable to "exit polls", from interviews with people after they voted) the minute the voting ends (6 pm) and that is fairly accurate, to the degree that a change before the comma is unusual (if it isn't from something like (x),9 to (x+1),0). A difference of a whole 3 percentage points at that level is nothing but a failure, and it has happened to the AfD in one of the two recent elections in federal states before (while the other, more recent one was pretty accurately prognosed).

OK.

 

[ddt]

It is a whole lot by German standards. Usually you get a prognosis (I think comparable to "exit polls", from interviews with people after they voted) the minute the voting ends (Sunday 6 pm) and that is fairly accurate, to the degree that a change before the comma is unusual (if it isn't from something like (x),9 to (x+1),0). A difference of a whole 3 percentage points at that level is nothing but a failure, and it has happened to the AfD results in one of the two recent elections in federal states before (while the other, more recent one was pretty accurately prognosed).

edit: To clarify, this was the first time the AfD competed in Berlin. They were founded in 2013 while the last Berlin senate election was 2011. So they gained everything they have now - the difference I talk about is between "exit polls" and actual result today.

The list of polls on the German wiki has quite a number of recent polls that predicted 14% for AfD though; they don't seem quite so off.

[ nitpick ] The Berlin parliament is the Abgeordnetenhaus; the Berlin Senat is its executive, which currently consists of a grand coalition of SPD and CDU. They'll need now a third partner in government to have a majority in parliament. Or the SPD allies with the Left party and the Greens.

 

[aleCcowaN]

The list of polls on the German wiki has quite a number of recent polls that predicted 14% for AfD though; they don't seem quite so off.

She was talking about exit polls...

 

[CapelDodger]

She was offering it just as evidence of masked vote intention.

Derail, apologies.

 

[ddt]

She was talking about exit polls...

I stand corrected. The exit poll of the German TV (ARD) was indeed:

Hier die Prognose der ARD

18.09.2016 18:00 Uhr

SPD: 23 Prozent
CDU: 18 Prozent
Grüne: 16,5 Prozent
Die Linke: 16,5 Prozent
Piraten: 2 Prozent
AfD: 11,5 Prozent
FDP: 6,5 Prozent
Andere: 6 Prozent

What I don't understand about this: apparently, people were not shy to express their planned support for the AfD in the weeks up to the election to pollsters, but they were shy to tell they'd actually voted for them in the exit poll?

 

[aleCcowaN]

I stand corrected. The exit poll of the German TV (ARD) was indeed:


What I don't understand about this: apparently, people were not shy to express their planned support for the AfD in the weeks up to the election to pollsters, but they were shy to tell they'd actually voted for them in the exit poll?

It's a hypothesis. People could have changed their opinion. The error margins clearly overlap, too.

But there's something true: people in personal interviews among other people who may be hearing, as it happens in exit polls, tend to be shyer than when they are asked by a phone record to press 7 if they are going to vote the bigotty fellows.

If my personal experience is of any use, I was once polled 30 metres out of the school where I'd just voted and the dialogue was this way:

pollster- Have you already vote?
Alec- Yes
pollster- For a poll from the Stranger, McWeird and O'Whotheheckknowsyou Institute, could you tell me who you voted?
Alec- Sorry, I don't answer such questions in the streets. Thank you for asking. Bye!

I didn't want my neighbours to know who I'd voted, had I had one of them behind me.

 

[ChristianProgressive]

In other words, context is more important than facts?
Is that because Trump can not be understood without an army of translators and apologists?

If what conservatives say is only true in the right context, maybe they should find themselves better speechwriters.

Context is always essential in understanding quotes. No critical thinker would say otherwise. See: "cherry picking" and "quote mining"

 

[ChristianProgressive]

How's it looking in Costa Rica or Ecuador?

Hold on there. Ohio doesn't belong being associated with irrelevancies like that. No Republican has won the election w/o carrying Ohio.

 

[ChristianProgressive]

Again, talking about it is one thing, but how is Trump the right candidate to fix it?

Trump owes a group consisting of Goldman, Bank of China, UBS and Deutsche Bank almost $1 billion, secured by the Trump Tower.
I bet Deutsche Bank is delaying paying its current fine because it thinks it can pressure a President Trump to let it off the hook.

All of Trump's businesses are so heavily leveraged that he can not go against the financial industries without risking his entire empire.

Both Trump and Clinton are allowed to be the ones who "talk about it" because ultimately they won't do anything about it. Real reformers like Bernie and Elizabeth Warren get media black-outed because they would do more than talk.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Context is always essential in understanding quotes. No critical thinker would say otherwise. See: "cherry picking" and "quote mining"

context is secondary: if you need the context, then it must be pretty extraordinary to refute the meaning of the actual quote. It is never more important than what was factually said. It is a mere facilitator of understanding. But unless the context is: this is what I don't mean, the context will not invalidate the factual quote.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Hold on there. Ohio doesn't belong being associated with irrelevancies like that. No Republican has won the election w/o carrying Ohio.

Ohio: Trump + 1.2

Wait a minute! Maybe the Constitution says that a Democrat can win the election without carrying Ohio.

 

[The Don]

Now fivethirtyeight.com has Trump at more than 40% chance of winning.

He has the momentum - it's going to take a lot to stop him now.

All those who were writing him off a month ago I think need to reassess their position.

What I find worrying is that he is a terrible, terrible candidate and yet it now looks increasingly likely that he will win.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Trump's one grace (that might save us all) is his short attention span.

if president, there is basically nothing left for him to achieve, so there is little reason to assume that he will do his utmost to actually get anything done.

Pence is no Cheney, and Trump will not let others take any glory that he himself could claim.

So it's quite possible that we'll see a year or so of pretty much nothing until The Donald gets bored and does something really stupid that will get him impeached.

 

[Stacko]

Trump's one grace (that might save us all) is his short attention span.

if president, there is basically nothing left for him to achieve, so there is little reason to assume that he will do his utmost to actually get anything done.

Pence is no Cheney, and Trump will not let others take any glory that he himself could claim.

So it's quite possible that we'll see a year or so of pretty much nothing until The Donald gets bored and does something really stupid that will get him impeached.

What Donald would primarily do in the Oval Office:

1) Issue unconstitutional executive orders
2) Watch cable news.

It's what he's campaigned on.